The document criticizes the Reading Recovery program and provides several reasons why it is ineffective and not worth the high cost. It argues that Reading Recovery's emphasis on using context clues over directly teaching phonics conflicts with scientific research showing phonics is most effective for teaching reading. It also claims Reading Recovery does not actually help many struggling readers become proficient and that its assessment methods are unreliable. Overall, it asserts there are more cost-effective ways to help struggling readers than the expensive Reading Recovery program.

1. PM readers and the Three-Cueing System or Reading Recovery would not be
allowed in the UK. They guarantee that at least 20% of children in any class
will be working at below grade level even after 4 terms of it. It doesn't
matter if there are any positives, you can meet the needs of ALL students if
you do things differently (as those using SSP are now finding).
There is now a 'non negotiable' approach in the UK- not one child should be
failed. Every child should be reading independently by the age of 6.
And if I can guarantee that- in any socio economic area- anyone can. But you
have to change strategies.
PM Readers, Three Cueing System, Reading Recovery, Guided Reading using
text the children cannot code, Sight Words (taught as Look, Cover, Say, Write)
..they all have to go.
I am former UK Inspector of Education, and it's been an interesting journey for
me here in Australia, since emigrating 7 years ago.
I am regularly meeting people who lead 'literacy' strategies who are still
promoting Guided Reading' of text the students can't code independently, and
who are confused about the reading brain. They believe that guided reading
will TEACH children read, which it won't, and do not realise that Guided
Reading is only useful to develop higher order/ critical thinking of text the
students can code themselves.
You can probably code the word 'gallimaufry' - but would need the 'guidance'
regarding its meaning, and how to use it in context. If you can't code it, it
becomes an exercise in vocab knowledge, not reading.
Reading = coding with fluency and comprehension. But coding comes first!

2. That's fact, not an approach. You won’t meet the needs of EVERY child if you
don't do this. Almost half of Australians are functionally illiterate because
those who taught them over the past decade (or longer) kept doing as told, or
what they believed in, rather than using what the science tells us. What brains
scans before and after specific interventions tell us- in black and white.
As the Primary National Strategy stress, decoding and comprehension must be
seen as two separate skills- initially the focus is more on coding and oral
comprehension- as they learn to code, the comprehension links more with the
text. If you see it this way children can be coding in two terms- even if you
start in Prep - and Guided Reading can be a wonderful time to explore text in a
small group, that the children can read to themselves.
In the Primary National Strategy (2006a), the three cueing model is finally and
explicitly discredited. Instead, the Strategy has acknowledged the value of
addressing decoding and comprehension separately in the initial stage of
reading instruction.
“ … attention should be focused on decoding words rather than the use of
unreliable strategies such as looking at the illustrations, rereading the
sentence, saying the first sound or guessing what might ‘fit’. Although these
strategies might result in intelligent guesses, none of them is sufficiently

3. reliable and they can hinder the acquisition and application of phonic
knowledge and skills, prolonging the word recognition process and lessening
children’s overall understanding. Children who routinely adopt alternative cues
for reading unknown words, instead of learning to decode them, later find
themselves stranded when texts become more demanding and meanings less
predictable. The best route for children to become fluent and independent
readers lies in securing phonics as the prime approach to decoding unfamiliar
words (Primary National Strategy, 2006b, p.9).”
And even before coding? Every student needs to have good phonemic
awareness- or they won't code easily. Ironically, if they have it, they might not
get there as quickly as they could, but they won't struggle. But if you ask
parents and teachers what phonemic awareness is, most do not know. Many
think it is phonics. We're setting up around 20 - 35% of any class to fail simple
because their poor phonemic awareness is not recognised and dealt with. You
can overcome it in a matter of weeks simply by using Duck Hands, Lines and
Numbers. Cost per student? $0.
Someone asked about Reading Recovery, which is why I have written the post.
Useful paper to ponder, or present to your curriculum leaders, if they are not
up to date with the science of teaching reading and spelling.
Miss Emma

4. Reading Recovery: Anatomy of Folly
Martin Kozloff
2004
There are substantial problems with Reading Recovery that do not warrant its
strong advocacy. Moreover, there are better (more effective and far less
expensive) ways to accomplish the objective of trying to ensure that all
students become proficient readers. With that in mind, here's an overview.
1. Reading Recovery is an intervention for students in grade one who are
struggling to read.
2. Reading recovery requires teachers who are specially trained to use
Reading Recovery (Reading Recovery) assessments and methods. Reading
Recovery provides many sites around the world for this training.
3. Reading recovery is one-on-one. Sessions are given daily, for about 30
minutes, and for about 20 weeks.
4. Well over a million children have been in Reading Recovery, in 49 of the
United States.
5. Reading Recovery costs anywhere from $2000 to $8000 or more per child.
This is an astounding amount of money given the relative ease of reading
remediation with children who have been mistaught.
6. Reading Recovery can use up ALL of a school's Title I funds. There are
schools serving poor students ("90% free or reduced lunch") that spend
over $125,000 per year on Reading Recovery. These funds could have
been used to buy every graduating fifth grader a computer or a set of the
most important books in the world, or to buy better beginning reading
curricula.
7. Serious questions are raised about the validity of Reading Recovery
assessment instruments (and therefore data), the assignment of children

5. to intervention groups, and about claims of effectiveness. For example,
one objective (and claim to effectiveness) is that students end the
Reading Recovery intervention at least in the range of average for their
classroom. This NORM referenced criterion is not terribly useful. What if
the average for a class is low? A similar example would be claims that a
drug will lower your blood pressure to the average for your community.
Not a good thing if the average is 155/120!
8. The Reading Recovery website has recently been changed. Reading
Recovery is now presented in a way that makes it appear to be perfectly
consistent with the preponderance of research—what reading is (the five
main skills) and how best to teach it (systematically and explicitly). I am
not accusing anyone of duplicity, but it is a fact that Reading Recovery has
not been considered consistent with the tenets of Reading First, and
therefore could not be used by states that wanted to receive Reading First
funds.
9. Which is the wisest hypothesis if some students are struggling to read in
grade one?
a. These students have something wrong with them, and need a special
intervention that costs from 2 to 8 thousand dollars per student.
b. The beginning (core) reading curriculum is not adequate for some
students—just as a standard diet does not give some students the
amount of iron they need. We should examine the core curriculum in
light of principles of sound design and, if indicated, get a better one.
We should also obtain good supplemental and intervention programs
and create a complete curriculum. We should use the supplemental
and intervention programs with students in grade one who are
struggling (much cheaper and there is every reason to believe they
would work). And we should pilot test the new complete curriculum to
see if the percentage of struggling readers decreases. If there are still
a few struggling readers, we should give diagnostic tests to see if they
have phonological processing problems (e.g., they can't easily hear the

6. separate sounds in words; they can’t quickly transform a thought into a
spoken word; they have poor short term memory, and therefore forget
the word they are sounding out), and, if so, give them specialized
interventions noted above.
10. Reading Recovery has some features of a cult. Its advocates identify
closely with Reading Recovery. They (in my experience) are true believers
in its theory and methods. They are not open to criticism or to data from
experimental research that questions the efficacy of Reading Recovery or
the validity of its theory of reading.
11. Whole language and Reading Recovery are similar in many ways—they use
qualitative and subjective assessments; and they teach students to use
cues OTHER than the letters to identify what words say.
12. Reading Recovery is emblematic of much that is wrong in the field of
education.
a. Administrators implementing programs with no credible information on
how well it works, without a serious examination of their own
curriculum to see how exactly the new program fits, and with no idea
of alternative programs.
b. Teachers in education schools NOT being taught enough about a
knowledge system (reading, math, history) or about instructional
design or about the canons of credible research that they can judge
the logical and empirical adequacy of the programs their professors
teach them.
c. The program, or method, or curriculum, or innovation is organized as a
closed system that perpetuates and at the same time hides its
inadequacies. For example, if you include memorizing words, holding a
book properly, and identifying print (e.g., signs on the wall), as
examples of early reading skills, then whole language appears to be
effective—even though (given a sane definition of reading) the students
aren't reading.

7. And of you define success as bringing students up to the average reading
level in a class--even if the average--in a CRITERION referenced sense—is
low (the average students can't read worth a dang!)--then Reading
Recovery looks effective.
And so, uniformed principals and ill-educated teachers cling to
whatever methods that now have a history in the system, and on which
they've spent so much money and time and effort. And the inadequacies
of the method harm students year and year after year.
Following is an extended examination of Reading Recovery.
Review of Research on Reading Recovery
A number of empirical considerations render Reading Recovery a questionable
intervention for early elementary students who need instruction to ensure and
to accelerate: (1) the acquisition of essential elemental reading skills (e.g.,
phonemic awareness, sound/symbol correspondence, decoding strategies); and
(2) fluent reading with high comprehension (Adams, 1990; Blachman et al.,
1999; Brett, Rothlein, & Hurley, 1996; Castle, Riach, & Nicholson, 1994;
Cunningham, 1990; Davidson & Jenkins, 1994; Faulkner & Levy, 1999; Levy,
Nicholls, & Kohen, 1993; O'Connor, Jenkins, & Slocum, 1995; Pressley et al.,
1989; Pressley et al., 1994; Stuart, 1999; Vandervelden & Siegel, 1997). These
considerations include the following.
1. Essential design features of Reading Recovery conflict with the
preponderance of scientific research and with the guidelines of Reading
First.
2. By emphasizing meaning and context-cue guessing over first teaching
children directly, systematically, and comprehensively to read and
comprehend words by using the code, Reading Recovery provides
struggling readers with too little of the skills they need to become
proficient readers.
3. Reading Recovery is less effective than it purports to be and does not
provide many struggling readers with the skills they need.

8. 4. Reading Recovery's evaluation methods and data appear to be unreliable,
overly-subjective, and invalid with respect to individual student progress
and the cost-effectiveness of Reading Recovery at school, district, and
state levels.
5. Reading Recovery appears to violate principles of equity.
6. Reading Recovery is very expensive.
7. Reading Recovery does not appear to foster needed school-level reform of
reading curricula.
8. There are more cost-effective approaches than Reading Recovery to
beginning and early remedial reading.
The Essential Design Features of Reading Recovery Conflict with the
Preponderance of Scientific Research and With the Guidelines of Reading
First.
Reading Recovery rests on the assumption that reading is a problem
solving process. Readers scan the lines and the page for cues, make
predictions about what words say and which words come next, cross-check
(using more cues), and correct errors. In this view, a child's sense of the
meaning of sentences is the child's main guide to what words say—rather
than what words say being the main guide to what a sentence means.
Therefore, in Reading Recovery, children are taught to use many other kinds of
meaning "cues" before they are taught to use "phonics"--knowledge of
sound/symbol relationships (m says /m/)--to decode and comprehend words.
These nonphonic cues include the size and shape of words, layout of the print,
pictures on the page, analogies between known and unknown words, word
order, syntax, and special knowledge from past experience. Indeed, Reading
Recovery teachers are told that stressing sound/symbol knowledge (as in word
attack, decoding, or sounding out words) diverts from comprehension. The
founder of Reading Recovery, Marie Clay, states:
In efficient rapid word perception, the reader relies mostly on the
sentence and its meaning and some selected features of the forms of
words (Clay, 1991, p.8). With meaning as both guide and goal, the reader

9. checks what he thinks the text will say with visual information, and by
carrying out analytic manipulations (Clay, 1991, p. 235).
We have minimized the explicit teaching of phonics. We have taught the
child a variety of procedures for analyzing words into sounds…" (Clay,
1979, p. 64).
However, in contrast to practices in Reading Recovery, instruction is more
effective when children--especially struggling or at-risk readers--first
master the "code" (sound/symbol relationships) than when they try to
figure out words from the meaning-context (Foorman, 1995). Reading
words using the code--knowledge of sound/symbol relationships (m says /m/)--
is the primary strategy used by good readers, and is the most reliably effective
and safest method for teaching both beginning and struggling readers (Adams &
Bruck, 1993; Blachman et al., 1999; Foorman et al., 1998; Greaney, Tunmer, &
Chapman, 1997; Lyon, 1996; Pressley, 1998; Torgeson et al., 1999). The
following statements summarize the preponderance of research on this issue.
Skilled reading is not sampling features of the text on the run, it is not a
psycholinguistic guessing game, and it is not incidentally visual. Rather,
research has shown that 'skilled readers process virtually all the words
they encounter in connected text, and typically, all the letters in those
words' (Vellutino, 1991, p. 82). Research further indicates that skilled
readers are sufficiently fast and accurate at recognising words in text to
make reliance on contextual information unnecessary (Perfetti, 1985).
(Tunmer & Hoover, 1993, p. 167).
NICHD and substantial non-NICHD research does not support the claim that
the use of context is a proxy for applying decoding strategies to unknown
or unfamiliar words…The strategy of choice among well-developed readers
is to decode letters to sound in an increasingly complete and accurate
manner, which is dependent upon robust development of phonemic and
phonics skills (Lyon, 1999).

10. …the scientific evidence is simply overwhelming that letter-sound cues are
more important in recognizing words than either semantic or syntactic
cues" (Pressley, 1998, p. 16) and that heavy reliance on semantic and
syntactic cues is a "disastrous strategy" for beginning readers (p. 32).
Reading Recovery is a 12 to 20 week, daily intervention for struggling readers
in grade One. It costs anywhere from $2000 to $8000 per student. Yet, there
is strong reason to question the claims of Reading Recovery advocates that
Reading Recovery is effective and worth the price. Basically, there is a lot of
good research that says it doesn't work. Why, then, is it Reading Recovery
popular--often the reading intervention of choice? I will offer some reasons at
the conclusion. Let us now continue with our analysis.
Reading Recovery provides struggling readers with too little of the skill they
need to become proficient readers.
Reading Recovery rests on the premise that teachers should emphasize
context-cue guessing over first teaching children directly, systematically, and
comprehensively to read (recognize words and comprehend) by using the code.
However, a major reason why children struggle with reading in the first place,
and are selected for Reading Recovery and other remedial programs, is that
they (1) have not mastered phonemic awareness and sound/symbol
relationships, and therefore (2) cannot fluently (accurately and rapidly) read
words, and therefore (3) they cannot comprehend (or they quickly lose the
sense of) what they are reading (Tunmer et al., 1998). In other words,
struggling readers use context-cue guessing, and they do this precisely
because they are not skilled at the most efficient strategy--namely,
sounding out words (Nicholson, 1991; Raynor & Pollatsek, 1989). Indeed,
children who use contextual guessing and picture cues are 4.5 times more
likely to require Reading Recovery after one year of reading instruction
(Chapman, Tunmer, and Prochnow, 2001, p. 146). Furthermore,

11. The word recognition skills of these children remain relatively weak because
they do not develop as rich a network of sublexical connections between
orthographic and phonological representations in lexical memory as normally
developing readers (Chapman, Tunmer, and Prochnow, 2001, p. 144).
By teaching struggling readers to use context-cue guessing (which is
part of the reason they can't read to begin with!) rather than systematically
and comprehensively teaching the code, Reading Recovery appears to
decrease these children's later chances of being good readers, because (1)
in more advanced text, the most important and informative words are harder
to guess from the context; and (2) more advanced texts provide fewer and
fewer context cues from which students might try to derive meaning (Schatz &
Baldwin, 1986). Therefore, it would be expected that any benefits of Reading
Recovery in grade 1 would diminish rapidly as text difficulty increases in higher
grades, where context-cue guessing will not work. This is exactly what does
happen, as discussed in the next section.
Moreover, recent research shows that children in Reading Recovery
learn to read better when explicit phonics instruction is added to a
Reading Recovery program; e.g., "rime analogy training" (Greaney, Tunmer, &
Chapman, 1997), segmenting, blending and riming (Tunmer & Hoover, 1993),
and word study to develop phonological awareness and decoding skill (Santa &
Hoein, 1999). In other words, if you simply teach students properly in the
first place, they wouldn't NEED an intervention. How come you don't hear
advocates of Reading Recovery offering that obvious solution?
Reading Recovery is Less Effective Than It Purports to Be and Does Not
Provide Many Struggling Readers with the Skills They Need.
For example, evaluation research shows that:
1. "…participation in the Reading Recovery programme did not eliminate or
reduce (the) phonological processing deficits" that in part define children
as struggling readers (Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 1999, 2001).

12. 2. The progress of Reading Recovery students remained "persistently well
below that of the ND ("Normally Developing") children" (Chapman,
Tunmer, & Prochnow, J.E., 1999).
3. "The Reading Recovery group obtained significantly lower scores than the
ND group on all reading performance measures on each of the three post-
Reading Recovery testing occasions… (Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow,
2001, p. 165).
4. Following Reading Recovery, "…Reading Recovery children performed
relatively poorly in terms of word identification, reading comprehension,
classroom book reading level, and reading accuracy" (Chapman, Tunmer,
& Prochnow, 1999, 2001, p. 165).
5. In a large study of Ohio's Reading Recovery, only 53% of the children
eligible for Reading Recovery scored at the classroom average on book
level measures by the end of grade 1 (Battelle, 1995).
6. "Reading Recovery failed to significantly improve the literacy development
of children considered to have succeeded in the program: Reading
Recovery children showed no signs of accelerated reading performance,
and one year after completion of the programme, they were performing at
around one year below age-appropriate levels" (Chapman, Tunmer, &
Prochnow, 1999).
7. Twelve months after they were "discontinued" (i.e., finished with Reading
Recovery), about 35% of children continued to benefit, about 35% were no
longer "recovered," and "The remaining 30% probably would have improved
without such intensive intervention, since a similar percentage of control
and comparison students had reached average reading levels by this stage"
(Center et al., 1995, p. 241).

13. 8. Children who received Reading Recovery gained 4.6 book levels at time of
discontinuation over children who needed remediation but did not receive
Reading Recovery. However, at follow-up, the Reading Recovery
advantage dropped to 2.4 book levels. For the neediest of struggling
readers, the advantage of Reading Recovery was only 1 book level at
follow-up (Glynn & Crooks, 1992).
9. "…by third grade, the Reading Recovery instructed groups may not be
significantly different from the comparison groups as indicated by
measures of text reading" (Shanahan & Barr, 1995).
10. Regarding comprehension, former Reading Recovery students perform
about the same as comparison groups of struggling readers who did not
receive Reading Recovery. Specifically, "proficient oral reading
performance at Grade 1 has not resulted in self-extending strategies to
other literacy tasks in subsequent grades" (Hiebert, 1994, p. 20).
11. Maintenance of skills taught in Reading Recovery is low.
For example, even when the primary criterion is a task that is common in
Reading Recovery tutoring—oral reading of text—levels of maintenance at
Grade 4 are low. In Grade 4, approximately 4 students or 5.5% of the
cohort will be able to orally read text at the average school level and will
score at the average school level on the WRMT-R (Hiebert, 1994, p. 23).
12. For children who completed Reading Recovery, the average score for Oral
Accuracy was the only score which "met or exceeded grade-level
standards," and "The lowest average score was for Oral Comprehension"
(San Diego Unified School District, 1999, p. 4).
13. "Literacy Assessment test scores indicate first grade students who
successfully completed the English version of Reading Recovery, on

14. average, scored lower than the control group of non-participating students
on all three sub-tests" (San Diego Unified School District, 1999, p. 5).
14. "SAT 9 test scores indicate first grade students who successfully completed
the English version of Reading Recovery, on average, scored lower than
the control group of non-participating students using the internal studies
conducted by the District's Reading Recovery/DL Program" (San Diego
Unified School District, 1999, p. 5).
15. "…Reading Recovery children showed declines in reading self-concept
following Reading Recovery, and they held more negative perceptions of
ability in reading and spelling, and in general academic self-concept six
and twelve months following Reading Recovery" (Chapman, J.W., Tunmer,
WE., & Prochnow, J.E. (1999).
16. Reading Recovery does not appear to decrease the need for other
services, such as special education and Title I (Shanahan & Barr, 1995, p.
987; Pollack, 1994).
Reading Recovery Evaluation Appears to be of Questionable Reliability
and/or Validity.
The validity of Reading Recovery claims to effectiveness is weak in several
ways.
1. The validity of findings and interpretations is threatened by the
composition of the treatment group. In many analyses, only students who
are discontinued (i.e., judged successful) are examined. Some students
are omitted because of absences and other learning problems. Other
students begin Reading Recovery but are eliminated at the teacher's
discretion for low potential (Hiebert, 1994). This makes "the program
appear more effective than it really is" (Shanahan & Barr, 1995, p. 991).

15. 2. The major forms of evaluative data are subjective and may be biased. In
Reading Recovery, running records (a major outcome measure) are used to
determine where a child places in the 20 levels of book difficulty (Clay,
1993). These records are provided by the Reading Recovery teachers (who
have an obvious stake in the outcomes), rather than by impartial
evaluators. Moreover, running records involve qualitative analysis with a
high level of inference. For example, Clay says, "…you need to look at
every error the child makes and ask yourself 'Now what led the child to do
(or say) that?'" (Clay, 1993, p. 31).
The possibility of unreliability and invalidity are underscored by research
showing that, although Reading Recovery teachers rate "discontinued"
(i.e., successful) students who can read books at a level of 16., the same
children's classroom teachers rate the children's reading book level as only
9 (Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 1999).
3. The design of many Recovery evaluations does not rule out the effects of
maturation and other learning experiences (e.g., reading in class and at
home) that can account for changes (Shanahan & Barr, 1995). Again,
claims to effectiveness are likely to be inflated.
Reading Recovery Appears to Violate Principles of Equity.
Reading Recovery may violate principles of equity in three ways.
1. A major objective of Reading Recovery is to bring struggling readers to the
average level of first grade classroom achievement. However, this
average level differs markedly from school to school and community
to community. The average school performance in low income areas is
generally at the 20th percentile, while the average performance in more
affluent areas is at the 80th percentile. Therefore, to bring low-income
struggling readers to the 20th percentile sustains their educationally
disadvantaged status (Grossen, Coulter, & Ruggles, 1996).

16. Moreover, children who read at the 20th percentile level are not likely to
be academically successful later. Such child need school-wide effective
beginning reading programs that aim for mastery before the end of grade
1.
2. Reading Recovery is designed to serve the lowest 20 percent of a school
population. This may be equitable in a school with few struggling readers.
However, in a school where a majority of children are struggling readers,
serving the lowest performing children will leave a large percentage
of struggling children untreated. In other words, Reading Recovery is
not designed to solve illiteracy problems in schools with a high proportion
of at-risk children.
3. Reading Recovery purports to work with the lowest achieving readers in a
school. However, the most needy children may be excluded--sometimes
because they are judged too difficult to work with or not likely to
benefit. For example, Glynn & Crooks (1992) report that "Reading
Recovery teachers and/or STJCs in three schools said they would not take
particular mainstreamed special needs children into Reading Recovery as
they were 'too slow to go into Reading Recovery'."
4. In contrast to the explicit objective of Reading First and the No Child Left
Behind legislation--which seek to produce high reading achievement in all
children--Reading Recovery "never envisioned to recover 50% or more
of the children reading below grade level…It was designed to recover
10 to 20% of struggling readers after one year of reading instruction
using the New Zealand Balanced Reading Programme" (Reutzle, 1999, p.
323).
Reading Recovery is Very Expensive.
Several studies report the high costs of Reading Recovery when
teacher training, salaries, and materials are considered.

17. 1. Heibert (1994) calculated that the cost per successful student was
$8,333.
2. Shanahan & Barr (1995) calculated that Reading Recovery cost between
$4600 and $8333 per successful child.
3. A longitudinal study (1991-98) by the San Diego Unified School District
found that the cost per student ranged from $5,112 to $11,775.
In some districts, a child's one-to-one Reading Recovery (60 lessons) costs more
than the entire year's schooling. Grossen et al., (1996) state that "the data
indicate that the cost for Reading Recovery (30 hours of instruction for one
child) exceeds the national average per pupil expenditure for one full year of
schooling."
Reading Recovery Does Not Appear to Foster Needed School Reform of
Reading Curricula.
Reading Recovery is a one-to-one pull-out tutoring program for children in
grade 1. It is designed to serve a small number of individual children. It is not
the proper solution for schools and districts serving disadvantaged
children--children who come to school ill-prepared for reading instruction.
These schools cannot wait for children to become struggling readers because of
inadequate beginning reading instruction and/or phonological processing
weaknesses (Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1998). Rather, these schools
must focus upstream--on prevention of reading difficulties--rather than wait for
problems to emerge in grade 1. Such prevention requires school-level or
district-level focus on effective reading curricula in pre-k to grade 1 that will
teach children essential skills--such as language, phonemic awareness,
vocabulary, sound/symbol relationships, decoding strategies, and
comprehension strategies (as shown by the preponderance of scientific
research)—so that these children by the end of first grade are becoming
proficient readers who do not need remedial reading (Chall et al., 1990;

18. Shanahan & Barr, 1995; Torgeson, 1998). Arguably, only a small percentage
of first graders (children with true processing difficulties) would need
remediation if they were properly taught the first time.
There Are More Cost-effective Approaches Than Reading Recovery to
Beginning and Early Remedial Reading.
These cost-effective alternatives include the following.
1. In light of research cited above that questions the efficacy of Reading
Recovery, it would be wiser for a district to implement school-wide and
district-wide beginning reading instruction in kindergarten, and even in
pre-k for at-risk children, using field-test curricula that provide direct,
systematic, and comprehensive instruction on language, phonemic
awareness, sound/symbol relationships, decoding (sounding out)
strategies, fluency, and comprehension—-rather than wait for reading
problems to emerge and then spend anywhere from $4000 to $11,000 on
Reading Recovery per first grade child.
2. Systematic, explicit classroom instruction on phonemic awareness and
phonics using decodable text was more effective with Title I children than
a Reading Recovery support program. Indeed, it was found that "It was
the classroom curriculum effect, not the tutorial method effect that was
significant (Foorman, Francis, Beeler, Winikates, & Fletcher, 1997, p.16).
3. Reading Recovery students read better when explicit phonics instruction is
added to a Reading Recovery program; e.g., "rime analogy training"
(Greaney, Tunmer, & Chapman, 1997), segmenting, blending and riming
(Tunmer & Hoover, 1993), and word study to develop phonological
awareness and decoding skill (Santa & Hoein, 1999).
4. Fincher (1991) found that "…teacher Assistants with almost no training and
minimal teaching materials with which to teach and working in less than

19. desirable conditions, outperformed the Reading Recovery teachers when
their students' overall achievement was compared" (Fincher (1991).
5. For at-risk or struggling children, it is reasonable to use standardized,
objective instruments for identifying children's reading difficulties and
then providing timely use of explicit, focused instruction (Lovett &
Steinbach, 1997; Torgeson et al., 1999). For example,
a. Lovett et al. (1994) developed a 35 lesson word identification program
for dyslexic students for one hour four times per week. This program
achieved highly significant results with the "core deficit"; namely,
phonological processing and nonword reading skills (p. 818).
b. O'Conner et al., (1995) provided a program for at-risk readers. The
program lasted five hours (15 minutes twice weekly for 10 weeks), and
taught letter-sounds, segmenting, and blending. A second
experimental group had a wider range of phonemic awareness
activities. The authors conclude that students in both groups
generalized the skills they were taught and used them in the reading
process.
c. Hempenstall (2002) developed and evaluated a 50-hour program for
early elementary students with many of the same reading difficulties
of students selected for Reading Recovery; e.g., below average scores
on phonemic awareness, pseudo-word decoding, picture naming, digit
span, and spelling--in other words, precisely the children whose core
phonological deficits are present in most struggling readers.
Hempenstall used an inexpensive (about $20) program, Teach Your
Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Engelmann, Haddox, & Bruner,
1983). The design features of this program are consistent with the
preponderance of empirical research. In contrast to one-to-one
Reading Recovery, students were taught in a more efficient group

20. setting. Comparing the remedial reading group and the wait-list
group, Hempenstall found that the remedial reading group made
statistically significant gains in word attack, phonemic awareness,
phonological recoding in lexical access, phonological recoding in
working memory, and spelling.
In summary, in view of Reading Recovery's high cost, its ability to affect only a
small number of children in a school, equivocal evidence of immediate and
long-term effectiveness, and generally subjective measures, and in view of
readily-available, effective, less costly, and pro-active alternatives, a
district would be advised seriously to rethink a plan to use Reading
Recovery.
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22. Faulkner, H.J., & Levy, B.A. (1999). Fluent and nonfluent forms of transferring
reading: Words and their message. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 6,
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comparative study. Canton, OH: Canton City Schools.
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